Plea
Fingertips against the flimsy
glass pane of my grandma’s
front porch window, with my breath
making storms on the glass,
whispering Oh Universe! I ache
for you! as if I know
what that means, what that
could possibly entail.
And if the Universe answers me
it is only in the way the sky looks
at night in refinery towns,
how it billows and flashes
with a strange light I have not known
anywhere else. The aching grows
so huge it forms another body,
weighted, bloody like
a baby I would give away
were it not growing (growing!)
right inside me.
